Enhancing color and tone

Here I want to begin to introduce how we can work on the overall color and tone.One of the best things about Camera Raw is that it has a built-in workflow.In other words, typically what we do is we work from the top to the bottom.Well, so far, we worked on our color temperature, and we can modify this even further.For example, let's say we want to warm this image up more, simply click and dragto the right in order to do so, or if we prefer, we can cool this image off.So, again, at this point, all that we're doing here is making subjective editsin order to modify the image one way or another.

And in my case, let's say, I'll just warm the image up just a touch.We can do the same thing with Tint here as well. All right.Well, let's move down to these sliders that allow us to really get into theoverall tonal qualities of the image.Now, here you can see that my image was underexposed by quite a bit, almost two stops there.Well, I don't necessarily need to bring this up any more.I think the Exposure is okay, but I may want to work with some of my other controls.For example, I might want to add a little bit of brightness, just to brightenthis image up, give it a little bit more life, or snap.

I also might want to bring some light into some of the darker shadow areas,like around the eyes.So, if I go ahead and click and drag my Fill Light up, you can see nowI'm bringing some light into some of those areas where the shadows were a bit trapped.Once I've done that, I then can go ahead and add some contrast.Typically, again, you want to work your way through these controls, because asyou do that, you can then make some changes that make sense.Now, at this Brightness level that I've already dialed in, I add Contrast.So in this case, those areas that were dark don't become too dark. All right.

Well, so far so good.Down below, we also have the ability to work on Clarity and Color.Clarity, you can think of like mid-tone contrast.Typically, you have a relatively low amount, but what it does is just adds abit of nice texture.What about Vibrance and Saturation?What Vibrance will do is really target weaker tones. Sometimes it's fun to bringthis up to have a little bit more color variety.Saturation, we can increase to saturate, in this case over-saturate, or lower itdown to de-saturate, perhaps if we want a little bit more of a muted look.

Now, in my case, I just want to take out a little bit of the color.It seemed to be a little bit too strong, little bit too yellow for my liking.I think that looks a touch better there. All right.Well, let's evaluate our before and after at this juncture.We can do so by pressing the P key or by clicking on this check box here.This time, let's simply press the P key, here we have our before, and thennow, our after.

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Released

5/24/2010

In Photoshop CS5 for Photographers: Camera Raw 6, Chris Orwig provides in-depth training on Camera Raw 6, the CS5 component that enables photographers to open and manipulate images in non-destructive and now even more efficient ways. This course covers the benefits of the raw processing, which makes it possible to more precisely control an image's appearance—exposure, shadow and highlight detail, color balance, sharpness, and more—including new workflow procedures and technical concepts and issues. Learn the entire Camera Raw workflow, from opening and resizing, toning and cropping, to sharpening and saving. Exercise files are included with the course.